Under His Eye: Teaching Under Trump’s Policy

I teach twelfth-grade English at an urban school. The poverty rate here is high. Violent crime is a common occurrence. I’ve devoted my career to serving this population. The work is often difficult, but it’s the most-important work in the world, and I’m all in. 

When I returned to the classroom in September, to begin my nineteenth year in public education, I’ve come to accept that America is a fundamentally-different place than what it was when I last stood before a group of students in June. Sure, we still go to work and watch football. We’re still addicted to social media. But we’ve devolved into a people that hunts the vulnerable rather than help them. This was snapped into focus for me a few weeks ago as I passed through a traffic checkpoint manned by ICE Agents in unmarked vehicles.            

Washington D.C.’s law enforcement has been federalized. The Leader’s floated plans to do the same in other US cities. Home Depots and preschools are being raided. Public radio and the Department of Education have been defunded. At the same time, a slew of migrant camps are springing up. The changes have been dramatic, at times draconian, all enacted at lightning speed.

America seems to be sliding into authoritarianism, or something that looks exactly like it, and I’m not sure how long this slide will last. The Leader has attacked universities and museums. Pushed back on due process and habeas corpus. Targeted private citizens. Sued a newspaper for ten billion. Oklahoma Public Schools will now require its students to identify “discrepancies” in the 2020 Presidential Election. The Leader would never lose a “free” and “fair” election.   

If I taught underclassmen, I could fill my lessons with grammar drills and essay tests. Not an option for seniors. By the time they make it to me, all state-level assessments in ELA have been satisfied, meaning my curriculum is everything else that can be read, written, or spoken. At the start of any school year, I tell incoming students: English 12 is a prerequisite to the Real World, and that’s how I’ve always taught it. No question is too tough. No debate is too dicey. 

Yes, I answer to supervisors and adhere to standards, but when the bell rings and instruction begins, I’m the whole show. And you can’t fake that. Students see right through a phony. Do I discontinue current events because the news cycle’s too contentious, depriving students of valuable public speaking practice? Cancel research projects and critical thinking exercises? Dance around uncomfortable truths? 

Who’s that benefit?

I’m not just a teacher. I’m an agent of social change. I believe when the little guy’s empowered, society is a better place for it. I’ve staked my legacy to that. But I’m also a husband and a father, meaning I have a lot to lose. If something I said in the classroom, even if it was entirely factual, angered the Leader, consequences could literally be anything. I never thought about that. Now I do.

Of the Leader, conservative commentator George Will said, “He wants to permeate everything in life. There is nothing off limits to him.”        

I’m not suggesting this is the first moment in America’s history educators faced a politically-driven dilemma. Teaching through the Red Scare sounds terrifying. And I know from personal experience how brutal it got with COVID. This job has never been easy. I’ve been accused of indoctrination. I’ve been called a Communist. I’ve been written off as woke. That’s why there’s tenure. That’s why we have unions. But this particular era feels untested.

You’re either with the Leader or you’re against him.     

What would you do? 

Stand up or fall in line?               

In March of 2020, when Coronavirus forced schools to close down, I had this haunting vision of hard-hatted men coming into my classroom at some point in the faraway future, everything dark and dust-coated. I imagined one of those men finding something with my name on it, and saying, “Guy called Huba was here when the pandemic hit.” Now that vision’s different. Now I see masked men in black boots breaking down my door and dragging me away.  

Under His Eye.

Note to Reader: In the 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the phrase “Under His Eye” serves as both a greeting and a farewell, signifying that God, or more specifically, the ruling regime of Gilead, is always watching. It’s a constant reminder of surveillance and the omnipresent power of the state, intended to enforce conformity and discourage rebellion. 

Brian Huba conducts his workplace “business” at a high school in Upstate New York, where he teaches 12th-Grade English. Brian has placed op-eds in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Democrat & Chronicle, New York’s Journal News, the Syracuse-Post Standard, the NY Daily News, the Times Union, and the Utica Observer-Dispatch. His essays have appeared in the Educator’s Room, Wilderness House Literary Review, bioStories, Men Matters Online Journal, VoegelinView, the Superstition Review, and the Satirist. His creative nonfiction has been published on 101 Words, in Reed Magazine, The Griffin, Down in the Dirt, Literary Juice, and The Storyteller.   

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